


In Eyes Not Yet Created

by Schistosity



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, boob mentions but this gets a G because life drawing is incredibly unsexy, oh that's a tag?, the raw romantic power of art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25108219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schistosity/pseuds/Schistosity
Summary: Marianne accompanies Hilda to a life drawing class and catches the attention of one of the students.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund & Hilda Valentine Goneril, Marianne von Edmund/Ignatz Victor
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57





	In Eyes Not Yet Created

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DollyPart0n](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPart0n/gifts).



> _"And you will live forever  
>  In eyes not yet created  
> On tongues that are not born  
> I have written you down  
> Now you will live forever"_
> 
> — Bastille, [Poet](https://open.spotify.com/track/02Aw6IyFursVr67JbQrb1l?si=stTQ1uxvRxyeHY5SRw85PA)
> 
> This is a late birthday present for my homegirl Mollie who hooned through Verdant Wind in the first week of quarantine and got Marianne/Ignatz disease and gave it to me too. I’m sorry you accidentally got Marianne and Claude’s paired ending boo boo but hopefully this makes up for it.

Marianne feels very out of place.

Classroom 4-B of the Garreg Mach Art Department is modestly sized, but its high ceilings and skylights, streaming warm sun onto its eggshell walls, make it seem much larger. The room is full of empty easels and scuffed, leather stools, dirtied by presumably years-worth of paint smudges and other artistic detritus.

Marianne has never been anywhere like it before.

She’s been to art galleries, of course—grand ones that housed masterworks—but she’s never seen where the art is _made_. She’s never seen where inspiration is found and lost and the great works are crafted. It’s all very new.

The floor is the same as the easels. The ground under Marianne’s sandals is uneven with splashes of hardened paint and gouges from any number of heavy utensils being dropped or dragged. From her place in the corner by the side door (the one Hilda had disappeared into ten minutes ago to “get changed” and hadn’t returned from) Marianne can see the room as a whole: its perpetual sunshine, its high, vaulted walls, its aged, purposeful clutter of blank canvases and old sketches.

It’s a room with a story Marianne is not a part of—a future she won’t see. That uncertainty is making her a little nervous.

But then again, she’s usually nervous.

She hopes Hilda hurries up.

When she had agreed to drive Hilda to her “modelling gig”—a phrase to be mentioned in only the heaviest of air-quotes, as Hilda was a receptionist at a dental clinic with only a hobby-level interest in fashion who had never modelled in her life—she hadn’t elaborated on what Marianne was accompanying her to besides flipping her ponytail smugly and saying “a bunch of nerds sit around and paint my beautiful self”.

Marianne sighs and presses herself up against the wall a little more, absently straightening her skirts. She wrings her hands around her bag strap, mentally chiding herself for not bringing her phone. At least then she’d have something to pretend to occupy herself with.

Her small, awkward reverie is suddenly broken when the classroom door flies open.

A woman with dark blue hair walks in, oozing purpose.

She’s short but quite strong looking, though most people look strong to Marianne, who is very much not strong. She doesn’t look that much older than Marianne is, but she holds herself with a mature aura as she strides through the doors into the classroom, her long coat snapping behind her.

Marianne steps delicately out of her way as the woman strides up to her—strides right past her, actually—then pauses. She turns slowly on her heel, looking Marianne up and down.

“Oh,” she says.

“H-Hi,” Marianne greets in a too-small voice. She feels a bit like a deer caught in headlights.

“You’re… not Hilda.”

Marianne flushes. “N-no! I’m sorry!”

“Don’t apologise,” the woman says. Her voice is soft, but not necessarily gentle. “Lots of us aren’t Hilda.”

Marianne thinks that might be a joke, so she gives a weak chuckle even though the woman’s face doesn’t really move much from its neutral state.

“You’re her ride, yes? Are you staying for lesson?” The woman asks the question as she drifts around to a desk in the corner, shrugging off her coat and bag and pulling out a sheaf of papers from inside. “The scruffy one usually does.”

“Claude?” Marianne ventures carefully, trying to think about which one of their friends that could possibly be. Hilda had mentioned she normally had someone else drive her to her modelling gig, but she hadn’t said who.

The woman looks up with a blank expression. “What did you call me?”

Marianne blanches, her heart fluttering in her throat. “N-no, I—I’m sorry! I meant—He’s—”

The woman raises a stilling hand. “Sorry, that was supposed to be a joke,” she explains. “I’m not… the best at them. No. I know who Claude is. Don’t worry.”

Marianne’s jaw clamps shut, biting down another ‘sorry’ she knows won’t be appreciated. She decides to just nod.

“Do you draw?” The woman asks. As impassive as she is, she seems to have a pretty good grasp on Marianne’s mood, and changes the subject accordingly.

“N-no, not really. I-I like art but I don’t really… make it.”

“That’s okay,” the woman says. She moves away from the desk now, carrying her small sheaf of papers that Marianne now recognizes as graded assignments. She wanders around from easel to easel, placing the assignments on each one.

“I was going to offer you an easel, if you’d like,” she continues, “but if you’re more comfortable not sitting in that’s fine. Our classes run for two hours, but Hilda will only be modelling for the first hour. Claude usually waits in here until she’s done but it’s alright with me if you want to wait outside.”

“N-no, I’ll…” She doesn’t want to rock the boat, and as much as she isn’t entirely keen to sit in a room of relative strangers for an hour, she decides to follow Claude’s lead. It can’t be _too_ hard. “I’ll wait in here. I-I have a book… to read…”

The woman properly smiles for the first time, which does a surprising amount to loosen the stress building in Marianne’s chest.

She extends a now empty hand to Marianne. “I’m Byleth Eisner,” she says. “You can just call me Byleth, though. I’m the TA for this course.”

“Oh, uh, yes—” Marianne reaches out and takes her hand, “—I’m Marianne. Hilda’s friend.”

“Well, Marianne-Hilda’s-Friend,” Byleth says, and Marianne thinks she’s starting to get a bit of a stronger grip on her sense of humour. “You’re welcome to sit over there during class.”

She gestures over to a corner at the front of the classroom, where a small, upholstered stool sits next to a rack of canvases in a beam of warm-looking sunlight. It looks comfortable enough, and Marianne nods.

She drifts over, gently unhooking her bag from her shoulder and setting it down on the floor. She pulls out her book and settles into the seat while Byleth places the last of the assignments on each easel.

As if on cue, as soon as she finishes, the door opens.

A modest but steady stream of students pour into the room, some in pairs or threes, others by themselves. There are twelve in total, murmuring at chatting to each other as they drift to the easels.

Marianne watches them over the top of her book. A handful of them discover the assignments, and shift their discussions to those, but none of them seem to notice her.

Well. _Almost_ none of them.

Over the top of her book, which she is _not_ reading, Marianne makes eye contact with one of the students settling into one of the easels closest to her. He’s quite slight, dressed in modest clothes and a paint-stained denim jacket that’s a little too big for him. He has short green hair and big hazel eyes that blink at her as she blinks at him. He smiles behind wire-frame glasses, soft and unassuming, and Marianne can’t fight the blush it draws to her cheeks. She manages to at least stifle the yelp forming in the back of her throat, but she glues her eyes to her book to avoid any further attention.

She sincerely hopes that hadn’t come off as rude—because that’s the last thing she’d want people to think about her—she’s just… shy. She doesn’t soak up attention like Hilda. She’s just… _her_ , and ‘her’ is someone who doesn’t feel comfortable in the centre of things.

Because eyes on Marianne means eyes on her flaws. It means eyes on the bags under her eyes that she can never seem to get rid of. It means eyes on her chewed nails and messy hair and nervous speech. The threat of eyes on her insecurities is why Marianne doesn’t usually come to places like this, but she _had_ promised to help Hilda.

Wherever _she_ is…

She gets her answer to Hilda’s absence a few minutes later, when class is fully settled and the clock hits the hour.

The side door opens, and Marianne quickly realises several things at once.

The first thing is that she should have _definitely_ asked more questions about what Hilda had meant by “art modelling gig” on the drive over. Lysithea is always telling her to be more assertive, and she’d had thirty minutes in the car to get the details from Hilda.

The second thing is that this is a life drawing class.

The third thing, which comes in tandem with the second thing, is that Hilda is not wearing any clothes at all.

“Good morning!” she chirps, walking daintily over to the divan the front of the room. Her strawberry hair is piled up high on her head and she has a thin white robe slung over her shoulder.

“Good morning, Hilda,” the class call back. They don’t seem phased at all, not even when Hilda unceremoniously throws herself face-first onto the awaiting couch like a child in a ball-pit.

Marianne tries desperately to immerse herself in her book.

Byleth approaches the divan and starts instructing Hilda on how to position herself. At the older woman’s direction, Hilda ends up stretching languidly on her side, with her legs slightly crossed and her head resting on her hand. She undoes her hair and lets it fall over her shoulders, and Byleth actually walks around to settle it in a specific way. It’s all quite interesting to watch.

Marianne belatedly wonders if she should have taken Byleth up on the offer of an easel. She’s beginning to see the value in drawing a living model—how study of the way hair falls and light hits skin would help develop an artist’s skills. She quickly decides it wouldn’t have been worth it to join along with the class, though. Her lack of artistic skill would have made the whole thing a waste of paper and nothing more.

As the class starts it becomes clear to Marianne that nude modelling might be as close to Hilda’s dream job as anything. It involves two of her favourite things, after all: being very beautiful in front of others and not having to do anything for a long period of time.

But after a minute of watching the class draw out of the corner of her eye, she decides she’s not the same as her friend, and tries to occupy her time with reading.

She’s read it before but it’s an easy one to fall into again.

It’s old and romantic—something Hilda would be bored by and Lorenz would like for all the wrong reasons—but Marianne loves it. It’s about prejudice and reputation and tradition. It’s about finding love despite all those things. It’s about overcoming powerlessness.

More than anything, though, it’s about being _brave_. Marianne would like to be brave, but more often than not she’s… not. So, she reads about other people’s bravery, and hopes that’s enough.

She loses herself in it a bit, and she’s deep in the book by the time she’s suddenly drawn out of it by the sound of a soft phone alarm.

“Alright,” Byleth says, getting to her feet. “Hour’s up.”

There’s an ensuing rustle of papers as everyone starts moving. A few students get up and stretch as Byleth begins to wander through the easels, appraising the work on each.

Marianne places her bookmark back in her book and glances at Hilda—or rather, tries to glance at Hilda—because her eyes are instead drawn to that green-haired boy with the glasses again.

He’s looking at her, too, though not in a very overt way. He’s not staring… he’s just looking. It's a gentle gaze that doesn’t appear to be asking anything from her. It’s not judging in any way.

He smiles.

Marianne gives a small, tremulous smile back.

She turns to Hilda. Her friend winks and mouths something that might be ‘sorry’, which Marianne supposes is for not telling her the specifics of her modelling job. Marianne doesn’t mind all that much anymore, having gotten over the initial shock almost immediately, but she nods to be polite.

She starts packing away her things, only noticing Byleth weaving through the easels out of the corner of her eye. It’s not until she hears a burst of small, loud laughter from the TA that her head turns.

She’s standing next to the boy with the glasses, looking down at his easel.

“It appears Ignatz has decided _against_ drawing Miss Goneril today,” Byleth says with the hint of a smile. “It’s lovely, Ignatz, but I would have perhaps _asked_ Marianne before I used her as a model.”

Wait… what?

All eyes are suddenly on Marianne.

The boy with the glasses—Ignatz, apparently—looks absolutely mortified. For the first time in the lesson his eyes don’t lay on Marianne easily. As she gawks back at him, he turns away, face bright red as he tries to turtle into the collar of his shirt away from scrutiny.

Marianne wants to be doing the same, honestly, but the newfound attention has her rooted to the spot, standing idly and terrified in the corner of the room like a deer in headlights, wishing the floor would swallow her whole. She feels her heart hammering in her throat.

He’d… drawn her? Not Hilda?

Her knuckles go white on the straps of her bag.

Hilda, bless her, sees fit to draw the attention away from Marianne by sitting up and planting a hand on her hip. It’s an eye-catching gesture that shows approximately too much of absolutely everything.

“Ignatz!” She cries in mock outrage. “I get my tits out for you every week! The least you could do is fucking draw them!”

This raises a chuckle from the rest of the class and their attention slides off Marianne like water. Ignatz, if possible, goes even redder. Marianne thinks she must be looking much the same.

Hilda extracts herself from the pillows and slips her robe back on. In one fluid movement she sashays to Ignatz’s side.

One of the other students—a woman with orange hair—pipes up in outrage as Hilda moves. “Hilda! We weren’t done! Sit down!”

Hilda rolls her eyes and flips her hair over her shoulder. “Leonie, stop acting like you and Raph care about this class,” she drawls. “You’re sports science majors.”

Leonie pouts. “Shuddup! I need the credits!”

In a flash Hilda is at Ignatz’s side, squeezing herself between him and Byleth. She has one hand planted on his shoulder and the other on the top of the easel. She leans closer to peer at the drawing and Ignatz blushes away from her.

“Damn,” she says, casting a quick glance between Marianne and the canvas. “This is _really good_ , Ig.”

“Th-thank you, Hilda,” Ignatz squeaks, looking anywhere but her. The small part of Marianne’s brain that isn’t setting itself on fire wonders how he can sit there for an hour with a naked person in front of him and not bat an eyelash, but still get nervous in a situation like this.

(A smaller part of her notes that it’s very endearing, and that the high blush on his cheeks contrasts in a nice way with the colour of his hair, but she ignores that part.)

Hilda straightens up. “Hey, Mari,” she says with a smile, giving her a little wave. “Come see this.”

The eyes watching the exchange swing back to her and Marianne feels them prick her skin like pins and needles, but her feet still carry her forward. Her feet scuff softly over the paint-covered hardwood, and every sound clangs in her ears. Hilda holds out her hand as she draws closer, and Marianne grabs it like a boat tethering to shore. Hilda pulls her in, with a smile on her face, and turns Marianne around to see the picture.

Oh.

Marianne lets out a little gasp.

It’s a picture of her.

And it’s _beautiful_.

Instead of drawing Hilda sprawled like some kind of Goddess across the divan like the rest of the class, Ignatz has captured Marianne candidly. She looks as she had sitting in the corner on her little stool, book in hand, with a small smile on her face. Marianne glances over to her empty seat, eyeing the shaft of golden sunlight that she’d been bathed it. Ignatz has captured that, too.

With only charcoal and pencil, he’s managed to catch the way the sun had illuminated the flyaway strands of her hair, how it had shone on the curves of her face and neck and shoulders. It looks so warm and delicate, like the very picture of a woman in the height of peace and comfort. He’s even made her clothes—a blouse and corduroy trousers she’d unkindly call ‘frumpy’—look soft and comfortable, a far cry from how Marianne feels in them.

The girl on the paper looks delicate and poised and content. Happy, even. A voice deep in Marianne’s mind wonders why he would draw her this way, if this is supposed to be a life drawing class. Aren’t they supposed to draw people the way they actually look? Marianne can’t imagine she had possibly looked as lovely as Ignatz has drawn her…

“I’m sorry for drawing you without asking,” Ignatz says quietly, still fighting back the blush on his cheeks. His amber eyes meet hers, apologetic and sincere.

“It’s lovely,” Marianne says quietly, as way of concession. “You’re a very good artist.”

“Thank you,” he says, beaming. “I’m glad you like it… I tried to do you justice.”

Marianne doesn’t know if she had the brain capacity to unpack what he means by that right now—the entire situation has her feeling quite frazzled.

She becomes even _more_ frazzled when she feels a hand on her arm. She whirls around to come face to face with Byleth.

“Would you like to sit for us, Marianne?” she asks.

“S-sit?”

“Model for us,” Byleth explains gently. “I just got a text from our second model. He won’t be able to make it today and usually I’d cut the class short, but…”

She lets her statement trail off and Marianne fills in the blanks. Oh. Byleth wants her to be the next model. To sit for an hour and let the class draw her.

To let Ignatz draw her again.

“Oooh! You should do it, Mari!” Hilda chirps. “It’s really fun!”

Marianne is not a brave person, not usually. She is a person content to read about the bravery of others—to let the winds of fate push her this way and that with no real input on her part. But somehow, something in her decides to be a little brave.

Maybe it’s Hilda’s smile. Or maybe it’s Ignatz’s hopeful eyes.

She’ll be brave. Just for today.

“I-I don’t have to take my clothes off, right?”

Byleth smiles. “Of course not. Not unless you’re comfortable with it.”

Marianne shakes her head. “N-No, I’d like to keep my clothes on… thank you… but, I—I’d be happy to s-sit for you.”

Hilda claps her hands excitedly and Byleth nods, turning to shout some instructions to the rest of the class.

The gravity of what Marianne has agreed to begins to set in.

“Where do I—What should I do?” She asks, and only remembers she’s within Ignatz’s earshot when he lets out a soft, kind laugh.

“It’s life drawing,” he explains. “So just… do what you’d do naturally! It was quite nice to draw you reading, maybe you could keep doing that?”

“O-Okay.”

He beams. “You’ll be fine!”

With gentle, purposeful hands, Byleth helps settle Marianne onto the divan. In the end she is curled up in one corner, propped up delicately on one elbow with her legs tucked loosely underneath and her book open in her hands. Marianne supposes it looks quite natural—like a woman reading to herself on a lazy morning, but she feels tense all the same.

“Would you mind taking your hair down, Marianne?” Byleth asks suddenly. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Marianne remembers Hilda, with her strawberry locks tumbling over her shoulders like a pink waterfall. It had all looked quite elegant, and while she’s not sure she can match that elegance, she doesn’t want to disappoint anyone.

She nods and runs her trembling fingers through her hair to pull out the pins that hold it in place. She slowly untangles her tight braids, and the result is soft waves spilling down over her shoulders, a little shorter than Hilda’s, but still long.

Byleth’s purposeful hands come up again to gentle guide Marianne’s hair around so it falls over one shoulder, creating a cascade of blue on one side of her neck and uncovering the curve of her throat on the other.

Apparently content, Byleth drifts back to her desk and resets the timer on her phone.

“Okay team,” she says. “Let’s start.”

Hilda, who has just re-entered the room fully clothes, shoots Marianne a wink. Ignatz gives her a swift thumbs up.

The timer starts and Marianne tries _very_ hard to read.

Very hard. Harder than she’s ever had to try before. She normally doesn’t have to try at all to read; it’s usually very easy. But she doesn’t normally have distractions like these.

The words swill on the page. The text stutters.

Her eyes flicker up and catch Ignatz’s. Everyone is staring at her now, not just him, but he’s still the only one she can bring herself to focus on. His eyes are brown, but the light is hitting them in such a way that makes them look almost gold. Marianne is not an artistic person like he so obviously is—she wonders what kind of light he sees in her eyes in return?

He gives her a little smile when he sees her looking. She drags her eyes back down to the page but finds that making it through the text is like trying to walk through waist-deep water—slow and muddled, held back by surroundings that call for more attention.

She looks up again and finds that he’s turned back to his portrait, hand moving in short, purposeful movements. The rims of his glasses flare gold, like his eyes. They seem to gild them, like the shimmering edges of antique mirrors.

He looks back at her—perhaps to get more reference, perhaps just to look—and smiles again. This time, she smiles back before turning away. She can feel him watching in the same warm way she can feel the sun on her face.

She wonders what he sees when he looks at her. Curled up on this divan with a book in hand and sunlight in her hair. Eyes on her, seeing everything she despises about herself and finding the light in them—finding a softness she hadn’t even recognised.

Her lips pull into a smile at the thought, and she finds herself hoping he draws that, too.

The timer lets out a soft chime again, and Marianne jerks her head up, realising that—somehow—an hour has passed.

Byleth makes her rounds again, but Marianne remains rooted on the couch instead of getting up to see the students’ work. Seeing Ignatz’s depiction of her was enough; she’s not sure she could handle herself through the eyes of eleven others.

Hilda drifts past to give Marianne a comforting squeeze before she wanders around to make small talk with some of the students.

After a moment it’s only them, Ignatz, Byleth, Leonie, and a very large, blond man she’s busy talking to left in the classroom. Marianne pulls her frightened eyes from the man’s muscles to look at Ignatz, who has walked over.

“Hi,” he says with a smile. Marianne finds herself matching the expression.

“Hi,” she says softly. “Thank you for helping me before… with what to do and everything.”

“Nonsense,” he waves his hand. “I’m happy to help, but you were a natural.”

Marianne, who is still feeling the pent-up tension leave her limbs, just smiles. “You think so?”

“Of course!” he says, and then he smacks his head like he’s remembering something. “Oh!” He says, “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Ignatz Victor.”

He holds out his hand, and Marianne tentatively takes it. She can feel the charcoal on his fingers brush onto hers but doesn’t mind. “Marianne… von Edmund.”

“It’s nice to meet you Marianne.”

“L-Likewise!”

He wrings his hands together, looking suddenly nervous. “I, well… do you want to see it?”

“Your drawing?”

“Yes! Uh, I hope you like it! I’d like to think I’m doing you justice.”

There’s that sentiment again, the one that confuses her to no end. What is he seeing in her that he thinks he can’t capture?

Marianne nods, though, and lets Ignatz lead her over to his easel.

From her place chatting with Byleth, Hilda sends her a wink and a thumbs up, which Marianne ignores.

Ignatz stands next to his easel with the air of a nervous child showing off an arts and crafts project, and the mental image makes Marianne smile a little. But that amusement fades when she’s sees what Ignatz has drawn.

Most of the effort has been put into the upper body—particularly the head and shoulders. Sure enough, the hair Byleth had painstakingly draped over one shoulder was rendered in loving detail—Ignatz had made sure to imbue the waves with that same sunlit illumination he had in the first sketch.

But it’s the rest that makes Marianne take _real_ pause.

“I know it’s supposed to be life drawing, so, like, what you look like in real life,” he explains. “But I noticed what book you were reading and thought it might be quite fun to… I don’t know… use my imagination? Sorry if that’s a little strange.”

He laughs lightly, but Marianne is too focused on the drawing in front of her to fully register how cute it is.

He hasn’t draw her in the same clothes as before. No. Her blouse and trousers and scuffed sandals have been traded for the graceful silhouette of a pale gown. The neckline is cut straight just below her collarbone, with short, lacy sleeves and a high waist. The skirts are floaty and drape like delicate cloths over the curves of her body. The dress is simple but elegant and, paired with his beautiful rendering of her face, she looks like the protagonist of a classic novel—poised and brave and content.

She notices, right when she thinks she’s noticed everything, that he’s drawn flowers in her hair.

“It’s… I don’t know what to say,” she breathes.

“Oh, uh… do you like it?”

If Marianne were a bolder person she would have laughed. Like it? How could someone _not_ like it?

“I love it,” she says. “It’s beautiful.”

She’s aware of Ignatz staring at her for a long moment, but she can’t seem to take her eyes off the drawing to meet his gaze. She can’t, that is, until he suddenly speaks.

“We, uh—okay, this is a weird question, so bear with me—we have a folio project next semester. We’re supposed to pick a single model and do a series of studies, it’s—"

He cuts himself off, wringing his hands nervously. Marianne glances from his tightly knitted fingers too his flushed face, and simply gives him time to settle his nerves; she’d like to hear what he’s about to say, and she’s oddly not very nervous about the outcome herself.

“I was wondering if you, uhm, if you wanted to—Oh, only if you _can_ , of course, I’m sure you’d be busy—”

Hilda, out of nowhere, claps a hand on Marianne’s shoulder, and leans in with a conspiratorial stage whisper. “He thinks you’re pretty and wants to draw you for his dumb project.”

Ignatz and Marianne both jump at Hilda’s sudden appearance, but it’s Marianne who seems to parse her words first. She blinks at Ignatz.

“Y-you do?”

Ignatz nods. “Yes, well, the assignment isn’t for another few months but it’s always good to line up a model before the designated time, don’t you think? That way you can compare schedules and—”

“N-no,” Marianne cuts him off, which may very well be the first time in her entire life she’s _ever_ cut someone off. The next words out of her mouth are quiet; meant only for Ignatz. “I meant—you… you think I’m pretty?”

There’s a pause. Then Ignatz smiles, soft and genuine.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think you’re beautiful, Marianne.”

He says it so simply. Like it’s an easy thing to say. He says it so easily it staggers her.

No one has ever called her beautiful that wasn’t trying to get something from her or console her, but Ignatz is neither. He says it like it’s the truest thing in the world. The sky is blue, the Earth revolves around the sun, and Marianne von Edmund, who has never thought herself to be much of anything, is beautiful.

She realises he’s still talking, and blinks back to the present.

“—and I’d love to draw you, if you’d let me.”

The sunlight in the room seems to grow a little brighter. The gold frames of Ignatz’s glasses sparkle in the light, gilding his warm eyes like filigree.

The words tumble gracelessly from Marianne’s lips before she can stop herself. She’s only vaguely aware of Hilda’s blinding grin beside her as she quietly but surely says, “I’d love that.”

Ignatz beams. “Really? Oh, that’d would be amazing!”

“Ooh! I know!” Hilda claps her hands together. “Maybe you could come back next week, too! That way you can get more comfortable being a model!”

Marianne’s heart flutters at the prospect. “Oh… but… doesn’t Claude usually come? I wouldn’t want to be a pain…”

“Puh- _lease_.” Hilda rolls her eyes. “Claude won’t care. He just sits in the corner and plays Zelda with the sound on. I’m sure everyone here would be glad for a break from that.”

“Yeah,” Leonie chimes in where she’s packing up her papers. “Last week we had to listen to him fuck up the Windblight Ganon fight for forty whole minutes. It was kinda funny but, like, it was a little bit easier to concentrate with you here.”

“Sometimes he brings snacks, though,” the very large man counters. “I’d miss that.”

“I can bring snacks,” Marianne says at the same time Hilda smacks the guy on the arm and says, “Month-old baklava from his glovebox is not a _snack_ , Raphael!”

Raphael turns to Marianne.

“What kinda snacks we talking?” He asks with an appraising, but not unkind air.

“I, uh, I-I can make cookies,” Marianne stammers. Raphael nods sagely.

“You can stay,” he decides. “Cookies are good.”

“Yeah, and the ones that haven’t been sitting in a hot car are the best,” Leonie says, patting him on the shoulder. “We’d better get going, big guy. See you all next week!”

They wave goodbye and head out. Hilda bounces on her heels, brimming with excitement.

“I’m going to go sort things out with Byleth,” she says. “You guys swap fax numbers or whatever the kids are doing these days.”

She bounds off, leaving Marianne and Ignatz alone at the easel.

“I guess we’ll be seeing a bit more of each other sooner than we thought,” Ignatz says.

“Yeah,” Marianne says with a smile. “I… I look forward to it.”

“I look forward to it, too, Marianne, and here—” he brandishes his drawing from behind his back, having rolled it up into a delicate tube during the conversation, “—take this. I’d… I’d really like it if you had it.”

Marianne takes the picture carefully, trying her best not to crease or jostle it.

“Are you sure?” She asks. “You don’t want it for… for your f-folio?”

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “Plus I’ll be getting to draw you a lot more, right?”

“Right,” Marianne agrees.

It isn’t until she’s getting back into her car with Hilda babbling about something or another in her ear that Marianne notices the phone number scrawled in the corner of the rolled-up drawing.

It’s an awfully bold move, uncharacteristic, maybe, for the unassuming man Marianne had encountered today. But it’s… nice. The gesture is oddly forward but she doesn’t really find herself minding.

“Gasp? Is that his _number_?” Hilda drawls, settling into the passenger seat to fiddle with the aux as soon as Marianne turns the keys.

“Oh _hush_ , you,” Marianne chides softly. “It’s for his project.”

“Uh-huh. But you’re one-hundred percent texting him as soon as you get home, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Marianne says simply. “What kind of person do you take me for?”

Hilda laughs as Marianne pulls out onto the street, and they drive home accompanied by giggles and trashy pop music the whole way, and the sun seems just a little bit brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Marianne is reading Pride & Prejudice and that’s not very relevant to anything in this fic beyond broad themes of repressed emotion and speaking your mind, but I just really like it, and I also think Marianne would enjoy Regency-era literature quite a lot. 
> 
> Hilda working as a receptionist at a dental clinic is a…. *very* niche in-joke, but the important things to know are a) it’s Seteth’s clinic, b) she does next to no work, and c) Seteth can’t fire her even though she does next to no work because she’s the only staff member who will help him set up facetimes with Flayn without laughing at him.
> 
> Marianne drives a little blue Suzuki Swift that she got second hand from a cousin and she keeps it spotless with, like, organic potpourri fresheners in the mirror. Meanwhile Claude drives his uncle’s vintage, piss-yellow Chevy Camaro which is aesthetically cool but has lost all market value due to the fact he keeps leaving perishable food and Tupperware full of diluted acids in the glovebox. Hilda refuses to learn to drive when she has two friends that can do it for her. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @fizzityuck, twitter @claregormy, or hanging in the Louvre (Down the back, but who cares? It's still the Louvre)


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